Santal Royal

This is pure heaven. I love the green bottle shown but I have the "bee" shaped bottle with gold emblem on it. Anyway. I have been searching for a rich, oriental, rose/cinnamon and had been told it didn't exist. It does, it's Santal Royal and it is *heaven.* I'm wearing her in public for the first time today and two people asked me what I was wearing and used the word "heavenly" to describe it. If you like bright, super sweet modern fragrances steer far, far away. This is rich, dark, smoked and spiced. The rose isn't young, it's an antique rose sprawling like an octopus in an old hedgerow. You catch the scent of it as you go by and it's haunting. It has melted perfectly into the spicy accord that's dominated (on me) by cinnamon, and grounded in wood. I don't get any leather which is good because leather scents smell horrid on me.

A fine quality and perhaps timeless scent. I could see the slight similarity with Halfeti but it lacks the aromatic notes. This is warm, resinous and woody. If you can't handle oud then test with care or maybe not at all. Leather/oud warmed by Amber/peach/rose with a hint of spice. Gradually the flowers wain and it becomes a little more about musky wood notes. The dry down is pretty special. Great longevity as you would expect. A nice warm oud scent but it doesn't excite me enough to go fb. I will stick with my Penhaligons Halfeti. Very classy as you would expect of a Guerlain. I guess a cold weather scent as it would be too much in heat.

Oh this is divine. This is exactly what I want from a sandalwood fragrance, and honestly a fragrance in general, this is exactly to my preferred taste. Musky, ambery, woody incense. Happily I dont get much peach, jasmine or cinnamon, just enough to make this perfectly blended and smooth, well rounded. Its like a fine wine, fermented to perfection. I'm wearing this today and I cant stop sniffing myself. Unisex to feminine leaning, something in it is light and gentle. Love this one, along with spirituese double vanille by Guerlain, need to try some more from this legendary house.

I am testing this from a decanted sample, sent me by the estimable trabuquera. A sniff of the bottle before spraying... Hmmm... This reminds me of perfume I have... A spritz to the back of my hand and - yes! - I am right. This is similar to my most complimented perfume - Wisal Dhahab Ajmal - if a little more rosy. The Guerlain is stunningly good, but the Ajmal is nearly its equal, whilst being about 1/4 of the price (although the Ajmal bottle has nothing on that of the Guerlain, which is just beautiful). Please check out WD Ajmal; you will be pleasantly surprised.

Oh, I just love this. It's so deep and complicated. The initial notes are warm, woody, rich, spicy. As it develops it has an almost fresh scent about it, but you still get all the other layers. That's what I love about it most - I can smell nearly everything listed here: neroli, rose, leather, jasmine...stunning.

Wow, I sampled this a REALLY love it. Second only to my signature scent. Soft and sensual. Delicious. Lingers. It is everything a woman’s perfume should be. I know this is listed as unisex in some places but I feel it is feminine

Beautifully blended. Most oud-sandalwood fragrances are too dark or harsh for my taste, but peach and amber add such a lovely feminine sweetness to this one! If sandalwood was a woman, this is exactly what she would smell like.

This one is pretty special. I'd say definitely unisex but as it dries down completely feels more feminine. I think it's been slept on for so long. More people should check this one out because it's very underrated.

Again. This is magnificent. I am not sure how ANYONE could hate it. But..... to each his own. The dry down is an obsession for me. It is rich, rich, rich; deep not shallow.

I can tell that Santal Royal is a high-quality, well-blended fragrance, up to the famously high standards of Guerlain, but it leaves me a little flat. I didn't feel the same euphoric rush of recognition that I felt when I first smelled Samsara, that's for sure--or even one of the lesser Guerlains, like Flora Salvaggia in the Acqua Allegoria line. I would like Santal Royal a lot better on my husband than I like it on myself, but I think the smokiness of the oud--mild as it is, compared with some of my Arabian fragrances--would be offputting to him. I just have a small 1.5 ml sample (if that much--it seems pretty chintzy, especiallly compared to similarly priced Montale samples), so I doubt that this will grow on me enough that I would covet a full bottle that I have no business buying, so all for the better I guess. Sniffing my hand, I remember the odor of burning flowers at the Transcendental Meditation center to which my parents brought us a few times. Back then, in the mid-70s, you smelled a lot more authentic sandalwood than you do now, although I doubt anything those hippies were wearing met the high standards of the Guerlain house. Speaking of which, the sandalwood note is excellent, as you might expect--it doesn't smell remotely pickly, and not even particularly herbaceous. It smells more like a fine sandalwood soap, perhaps one of the pricier ones from Caswell-Massey. As Santal Royal dries down, the soft, almost powdery, or incenselike, violet notes float over the smoky oud, and the overall effect is quite pretty. I think I will upgrade from an OK to a Like, with the caveat that I doubt I will spring for a full bottle once this sample is depleted. I think I might be slightly anosmic to it anyway, so I'd be at risk of overspraying.

At first I didn't care too much about this scent. But the more I wore it the more it seduced me into liking it. On my skin the peach is more prominent than what the note votes above made me expect. There's a powdery quality, I don't know if it comes from the rose, or the woods, or the combination of both. It feels like a very dry vetiver. This makes the freagrance feel like an ashy peach, in the best way possible. Or like if you could feel the fuzziness of the peach, I like the experience. The woody, ashy, heavy side makes it feel more masculine. But the peach and florals keep it close to unisex. To me, the opening rides the line between a dark, mysterious, and very attractive male, and something my aunts might wear, settling on the former as the freagrance dries down. There is definitely a light addictive sexyness in the background. The dusty/ashy part combined with the rose make it very formal in my opinion. The peach makes it friendly, comforting, and different at the same time. Very interesting, i don't think i would wear it enough to justify a full bottle, but it makes me want to keep exploring this house.

When I first sprayed my little vial from a sample card, I sensed something like glue or resin along with the noticeable wood notes. Two hours after application Santal Royal is still very strong. The base is nicely balanced. Beyond the oud/sandalwood I find the amber and leather (yay, not over powering) more than musk. I can discern the rose with something else, maybe the peach or neroli, not so much any jasmine. I keep taking a big whiff to try to find the other notes but all I get is the very unmistakable and overwhelming sharpness of strong cinnamon. As lovely as this fragrance is, it's too forward for me to wear frequently. I definitely appreciate it. I checked Guerlain's US website, the lovely green bottle from the Colour Collection Flacon Quadrilobé has been replaced by a black one with a gold medallion. Still classy, but not as stunning as a the one pictured in this frag profile.

I like it but it's a bit too feminine for me, and I'm not exactly shy to wear unisex fragrances. This profiles as more of a spring scent for me, with some usability in the fall and winter, but I live in a cold part of the world. It is really nice but pretty expensive for what it is. $210 fore 125mL at discounters puts it in that category of being overpriced.

I love woodsy scents. This one started off too sharp to me. But if I spray it on my wrist and then add a drop or tow of Nirvana Black perfume oil to it, it smells heavenly. The NB perfume oil is sandalwood and vanilla (it also lists violet but that exists only in the perfume spray, not the oil) it mellows it out into something beautiful.

This is probably the smoothest fragrance I have. Such a delicious rose, a spicy leathery oud. Extremely well blended. Long lasting. Beautiful fragrance.

Overall it is lovely perfume, but sometimes I catch a whiff of sort of rubber hint.

Blind buy of a sample from Fragantica. Because you never know what you're going to get, I sprayed it on the little card that came with it. I thought it was spoiled because it smelled like brake fluid and burning plastic. Five minutes later, far more interesting, very smoky like incense, sandalwood for sure, very dude. Twenty minutes in, bit of leather, amber, musk. So far, no floral or peach notes. That said, I have noticed that my newer fragrances smell very different on clothing or paper than they do on me. I'll have to give it a chance on my skin, but it's going to be 90F here tomorrow, it can wait. I do like this scent so far, I like that it's a surprise that is confusing to the nose at first, but unfolds with some complexity. Since it is so very masculine, I'll keep this sample as a pet, but probably will not purchase for myself.

The initial blast is a chemical bomb, but only 5 minutes in, the juice blooms into a lovely dusty damask rose with expertly balanced oud, wood, and leather that stays linear for a couple hours. This quickly falls into a deliciously spiced skin scent, but I have to bury my nose in my wrists to smell it. For the price-tag, I'd expect to get a good 6 hours out of it - but this barely passes the 4 hour mark. My skin does tend to eat fragrances (which you may have gathered if you've read some of my other reviews), so perhaps others may have better luck with this. I'll finish out my sample, but won't be seeking a full bottle, since it just won't perform -- but other than weak performance, there's really nothing NOT to like about it.

I find the opening note wildly unpleasant and strongly reminiscent of super glue. So much so, that I came to the conclusion I hated it upon my first smelling. As a result, this is definitely not a fragrance to spray in close proximity to other. As it dries down however, the glue is replaced by a strong leather note. It then begins to mellow out and develop a profound sweetness to it. It somehow is a powdery, floral, spicy, and leathery, oud. It's complex and interesting, and I still have yet to figure out how I feel about it. I somewhat enjoy what it develops into but the open is so abrasive and caustic I'm not sure I can look past it. Definitely worth sampling, and definitely not a blind buy.

Opening is burning plastic electrical fire mixed with rancid cinnamon children's lip balm and sore throat breath. Thankfully I sprayed it on my mate and not myself. If it develops into something wonderful, I will be glad to change my mind but otherwise this is a no for me. Update: Tried it on myself for the second try and the opening still isn't working for me. However, after a night's sleep, I can still smell it on my hand and its a lovely sandalwood skin scent that I like very much.